The companies that make up the world of Big Tech have some competition with the creation and growing popularity of new apps Parler and Triller.
While the drive for fairness in Big Tech continues from President Donald Trump and others, companies like Parler and Triller seek social media platforms like Twitter, Facebook and TikTok from the top.
Parler was launched in 2018 as an alternative to Twitter and Facebook by University of Denver graduates John Matze and Jared Thomson. The point of the app? Free speech.
“There will be no fact-checking,” Matze Forbes said in an interview published in June. ‘You will not be told what to think and what to say. A police officer will not arrest you if you say the wrong opinion. I think that’s all people want. That’s what they like. ”
According to Parler, Parler has two million users compared to Twitter’s 330 million monthly active users and Facebook’s 2.6 billion monthly active users, according to Statista. The app is free and lets users share posts containing 1000 characters.
Thriller was made in 2015 and is similar to TikTok, but not quite the same. Thriller is branded as a music video maker and uses AI technology to edit users’ footage together. On August 2, Triller was ranked as the number one app in all categories in the App Store in 50 countries, according to a press release shared by the company.
The app has been downloaded more than 250 million times and saw a 20x increase in downloads in the last week of July, the press release stated. (RELATED: Patriotic Capitalism! This American Company Takes the Battle of Tik Tok)
The increase in downloads comes as TikTok has come into President Trump’s focus in recent weeks. National security experts have warned TikTok, which is owned by Chinese company ByteDance, could pose a risk to the US because of its ties to China.
“As for TikTok, we’ll ban them from the United States,” Trump told reporters aboard Air Force One, CNN Business reported on August 1. “Well, I have that authority.”
A spokesman said that data from US users would not be stored in China and TikTok would oppose any attempt by Beijing to obtain the data.
“TikTok U.S. user data is stored in the U.S., with strict controls on employee access,” spokeswoman Hilary McQuaide told CNN Business. “TikTok’s biggest investors come from the US. We are committed to protecting the privacy and security of our users as we continue to work to bring joy to families and meaningful careers for those who create on our platform.
Most recently, Trump signed a few executive orders banning individuals from communicating with parent company TikTok for the next 45 days with effect from August 6th. (RELATED: Trump Signs Pair Of Board Of The Late Night Prohibited Communication With Tik Tok, WeChat Parent Companies)
As previously reported, Trump’s executive orders include “any transaction by any person, or with respect to any property, subject to the jurisdiction of the United States,” with ByteDance and Tencent Holdings, parent companies of TikTok and WeChat, respectively. The assignments prohibit individuals from communicating with the parent companies for 45 days.
Before Trump set his sights on banning TikTok and the perceived threat to national security, he focused on the issues plaguing other Big Tech companies, including censorship and honesty.
The president signed an executive order in May to roll back Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act that protects “interactive computer services” from being treated as a third-party publisher after two of its tweets were actually checked by Twitter .
“Twitter, Facebook, Instagram and YouTube have immense, if not unusual, power to shape the interpretation of public events; censoring, deleting or disappearing information; and to control what people see or do not see, ”stated the executive order.
“Immunity should not extend beyond its text and purpose to provide protection to those who propose to provide users with a forum for free and open speech, but in reality use their power over a vital means of communication to engage in deceptive as a pretext for actions that censor free and open debate by censoring certain points of view, ”it continued.
Trump claimed Twitter had “unchecked power” to censor and called the fact-checking “political activism.”
President Trump has also gone to Big Tech for reporting anti-trust violations. As previously reported, he threatened to sign executive orders that would bring “Fairness” to Big Tech in July.
If Congress does not bring honesty to Big Tech, as they should have done years ago, I will do it myself with Executive Orders. In Washington it has been ALL TALK and NO ACTION for years, and the people of our country are sick and tired of it!
– Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) July 29, 2020
“If Congress does not bring honesty to Big Tech, as they should have done years ago, I will do it myself with Executive Orders,” Trump tweeted before the Big Tech CEOs were set to testify before Congress. “In Washington it has been ALL conversations and NO ACTION for years, and the people of our country are sick and tired of it!”
Could all these chaos apps like Triller and Parler help you climb to the top?
